Anonymous Coward

on 10 Jul 13

Being from Canada, and having access to public (not to be confused with free) health-care, it’s easy to lose sight of the real dollars and cents, and we always hear the horror stories of 5 or 6 digit hospital bills in the US.

I think what the Surgery Center is doing is AWESOME. Any time that you can take an opaque, insular industry and make it this wide-open, you’re well on your way to becoming a game-changer.

In my case it took me all of 15 seconds to navigate their site and get the price for surgery a recently had performed here in Canada. I don’t know what the doctors/hospital billed the government, but it couldn’t have been much more than the $5K quoted here.

Anonymous Poltroon

on 10 Jul 13

If one thing is clear is that unchecked “free” market doesn’t work for healthcare.

It is obvious that if they can hospitals will charge 5-6 digits whenever possible.
Why? Because they are profit seeking businesses and will charge as much as the market can bear. When the alternative to ‘purchase’ is to die or to remain disabled suppliers can ask for whatever they want.

Obviously any business knows that what your service costs and what you can charge for at 2 very different things.
You should charge according to value to customer, not cost to you, right?

Aditya

on 10 Jul 13

I was reading through the pricing disclaimer, which by the way should be commended for its straightforwardness and lack of legalese.

We are able to offer these prices due to the lack of expense in processing the claims and the absence of risk for non-payment.

This is enlightening. This reveals why on one hand we complain that healthcare costs are going up and on the other hand the medical community is complaining that their ‘take home’ is going down. Goes to show the level of inefficiency in the market.

Finally, I am more than even convinced that health insurance is terrible way to pay for regular healthcare. For usual household maintenance, you wouldn’t go file a homeowners insurance claim. So, why would you file a health insurance claim for a regular checkup. The reason is because of lack of transparency in healthcare costs and the inflation of these costs due to non-contributing parties.

This is brilliant. Thanks for sharing.

Chr4004

on 10 Jul 13

Awesome footer on the site.

Logical Thinker

on 10 Jul 13

@Anonymous Poltroon: Your comment is rather interesting. You’ve claimed that an ‘unchecked “free” market doesn’t work for healthcare.’

I’m trying to understand why “free” is in quotes.

Do you mean to say that the markets for health care isn’t really a free market? But then you’re saying that doesn’t work?

The truth is there is no real free-market in healthcare (certainly not in the US). Not even close. So if you’re using that as your evidence that a “free” market in healthcare doesn’t work you’d be right…and wrong. Right that the “free” market doesn’t work because, well, it’s not really a free market. But wrong in the assumption that a free market cannot work because your looking at a not free market and judging it as one.

Finally it appears that you believe businesses in free, competitive markets can charge whatever they want, with impunity and everyone will simply pay it. There’s very little (if any) evidence to support this claim.

GregT

on 10 Jul 13

Hmmm, I wonder how they handle the situation of eg. patient A is in and out in a day, patient B has complications and ends up in ICU for 2 weeks, for the same procedure?

One thing that people tend to forget in this debate is how the overwhelming part of health care cost is spent in the last few months of a life, eg., making people pay directly for routine lifetime procedures, even things like childbirth, sounds appealing but wouldn’t actually help all that much.

We could probably solve most of our money problems by doing something like in Logan’s Run, but being way past that age myself, I’m OK with passing along the cost of my health care to future generations ;)

Omar O

I will most definitely keep them in mind if my family ever needs surgery.

Anonymous Poltroon

on 10 Jul 13

@logical thinker: If the product that’s traded on the market is essentially survival, then yes suppliers can charge whatever they want since all others alternatives for the customers are worse. Especially when the supply of qualified surgeons is bound to be very limited, killing any chance of real competition (not to mention that they are well organised).
That’s also the reason I put “free” in quotes.

Logical Thinker

on 10 Jul 13

Anonymous Poltroon: “If the product that’s traded on the market is essentially survival, then yes suppliers can charge whatever they want since all others alternatives for the customers are worse.”

Like food? Water? Housing? Clothing? Etc.

Anonymous Poltroon: “Especially when the supply of qualified surgeons is bound to be very limited, killing any chance of real competition (not to mention that they are well organised). That’s also the reason I put “free” in quotes.”

You are correct to put free in quotes there, because that’s not a free market. So what you’ve done is to blame the free market for a government failure (limiting supply of competitors.) Good work.

Aditya

on 11 Jul 13

This topic of ‘limited suppliers’ for healthcare does not get as much attention as it deserves. It is rooted in the way the medical system is setup here.

I was born and spent a significant time of my life in india (now currently in US). One of the reasons that (on a relative basis) healthcare was affordable by a larger % of population was the fact that the extensive supply of healthcare providers drove the costs significantly down. The biggest % of these healthcare providers are internal medicine with a 4 year medical degree [This is after highschool] + residency. As a result the investment in terms of lost wages and real costs are lower, which leads to lower prices, which leads to more people being able to afford healthcare out of pocket. Insurance is really used to pay for exceptional conditions such as surgery, not for items such as fractures, cough cold, etc.

I believe that Britain has a similar medical education system.

On the other hand, in the states, it takes significantly longer to arrive at a point where you can earn your livelihood through a medical practice. As a result, folks tend to go for the super specializations ( because of sunk costs).

I believe that if the healthcare law had improved upon the prevalent medical education system, it would have a much bigger impact on the state of healthcare than this maniacal focus on health insurance.

Abc123

on 14 Jul 13

Abc123

This discussion is closed.

About Jason Fried

Jason co-founded Basecamp back in 1999. He also co-authored REWORK, the New York Times bestselling book on running a "right-sized" business. Co-founded, co-authored... Can he do anything on his own?